Month: September 2016

Doctor Who is the first television programme I can remember watching, my father watched the first episode of Doctor Who in 1963 at age seventeen, and I watched what I thought might be the last episode in 1989 when I was seventeen. The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker, 1974-81) was my first Doctor. I watched the show as a boy in Canada on an American public TV station, and it was my link to the country I was born in (and to the many alien creatures, worlds and ideas it introduced me to).

Waiting to watch episodes on television didn’t give me enough access to the world of the Time Lord, and so I sought out books wherever I could find them. These paperback retellings of earlier Doctor’s adventures were the only way for me to experience those stories, long before the advent of them on video. I dreamt of one day writing such stories myself. I’d imagine where the Doctor might go next and other beings he might encounter on far off planets.

Doctor Who returned to television screens in 2005 and has continued to the time of writing (2016), but to fans – who followed it’s stories in books, audio dramas, and comics – it never ceased. But as the BBC doesn’t accept unsolicited scripts, and I don’t yet have any recognition as a writer of science fiction, I am unlikely to get a call from the producers asking me to pen them an episode. What I do have is my imagination and an eagerness to explore the possibilities of a Doctor Who story that could be, which could revisit some familiar territory, but also speculate about the Doctor’s history, his people, and his purpose.

In May I began writing a little novelette, firstly as a script, mostly dialogue between the Doctor, his companion and occasionally other characters. It was split between the brief descriptions of the scenes they encountered and the actions that took place. I’ve added some additional text to help make it more readable, but it was never intended to be published.

This is the story I would’ve liked to have made for my children and friends who love the programme. It is a homage to aspects of the show I have enjoyed and which have interested me, although I hope it will be of interest to others too.